Pat Caddell: Press Has Become ‘Threat to Democracy’ and ‘Enemy of the American People

From a speech given by Pat Caddell, former Democratic pollster to the Accuracy in Media Conference held earlier this month.

Caddell worked for the Carter Whitehouse as a pollster.

PAT CADDELL: I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not. You know, when I first started in politics – and for a long time before that – everyone on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody. Which is exactly what they should be. They were unrelenting. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people. That changed in 1980. There’s a lot of reasons for it. It changed—an important point in the Dukakis-Bush election, when the press literally was trying to get Dukakis elected by ignoring what was happening in Massachusetts, with a candidate who was running on the platform of “He will do for America what he did for Massachusetts”—while they were on the verge of bankruptcy.

CADDELL: But the overwhelming bias has become very real and very dangerous. We have a First Amendment for one reason. We have a First Amendment not because the Founding Fathers liked the press—they hated the press—but they believed, as [Thomas] Jefferson said, that in order to have a free country, in order to be a free people, we needed a free press. That was the job—so there was an implicit bargain in the First Amendment, the press being the only institution, at that time, which was in our process of which there was no checks and balances. We designed a constitutional system with many checks and balances. The one that had no checks and balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the government and the power by telling—somehow allowing—people to have the truth. That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time. It is now creating the danger that I spoke to.

When we see what happened this week in Libya—and when I said I was more frightened than I’ve ever been, this is true, because I think it’s one thing that, as they did in 2008, when the mainstream press, the mainstream media and all the press, jumped on the Obama bandwagon and made it a moral commitment on their part to help him get elected in a way that has never happened, whatever the biases in the past. To give you an example of the difference, I’ll just shortly tell you this: In 1980, when [Jimmy] Carter was running for reelection, the press—even though 80% of them, after the election, reporters said they voted for Carter over [Ronald] Reagan, or 70% percent of them, a very high percentage—they believed, so much, that the Carter campaign and the Carter White House had abused the Rose Garden against [Ted] Kennedy that they made a commitment, as they discussed, that they would not serve as the attack dogs on Reagan for the Carter White House because they thought it was unfair and they weren’t to be manipulated. I totally disagree with their analysis, but that was when you actually had a press corps. Whatever their own personal feelings, they made judgments that were, “We’re not going to be manipulated.” This press corps serves at the pleasure of this White House and President, led by people like Ezra Klein and JournoList, where they plot the stories together. The problem here is that no one will name names.

But I want to talk about this Libyan thing, because we crossed some lines here. It’s not about politics. First of all we’ve had nine day of lies over what happened because they can’t dare say it’s a terrorist attack, and the press won’t push this. Yesterday there was not a single piece in The New York Times over the question of Libya. Twenty American embassies, yesterday, were under attack. None of that is on the national news. None of it is being pressed in the papers. If a President of either party—I don’t care whether it was Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or George Bush or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush—had a terrorist incident, and got on an airplane after saying something, and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified! It would have been—it should have been the equivalent, for Barack Obama, of George Bush’s “flying over Katrina” moment. But nothing was said at all, and nothing will be said.
It is one thing to bias the news, or have a biased view. It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know.

But all I want to conclude to this is that we face a fundamental danger here. The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people. And it is a threat to the very future of this country if that—we allow this stuff to go on. We have crossed a whole new and frightening slide on the slippery slope this last two weeks, and it needs to be talked about.

When you have firms that have Ed Gillespie in business with Jack Quinn, who was the counsel for Bill Clinton, and responsible for the pardon of Marc Rich, among other things, is because everybody in this—those people on K Street, in both parties, are about arrangements and money. Everyone in the press is. We have stimulus money being given. We have people who, as I said, the relationships, when people are making contracts, and their husbands and wives are getting—Jay Carney’s wife works in the government! Now he works—he was the head of the Time Magazine! He was a liar then, and a liar now, apparently!

We’re sliding toward a system by establishing the fact that the press, in fact, has prostituted themselves in the service of a political party, or a political candidate, and once you go down this road and say, “That’s happening,” then people say, “Why do we need a First Amendment? Why should we protect them? They’re not protecting us.” That’s the threat here. That’s the danger that I worry about, because we desperately need a real free press, whatever its faults, that protects the people. And soon, they will be owned by the people—we’re getting very close to that. Watching the coverage of this stuff, in the last ten days, on Libya, and the press corps and the networks serving as nothing but offshoots of the White House Press Office, is really scary. We’re going to get to this question, because that is down that road. These people are going to destroy freedom in America.

In 1988, Caddell left the Democratic Party after an acrimonious lawsuit with a Democratic consulting firm, Caddell, Doak and Shrum. Republicans would often cite Caddell's tirades against the Democratic Party when they spoke on the floor of the House and the Senate.[3][4][5]

According to researchers, Caddell had wide influence in the Carter White House, and was the chief advocate of what later became known as Carter's "malaise speech".[6]

His analysis on polls and campaign issues often puts him at odds with the current leadership of the Democratic Party. He has been criticized for predicting the downfall of the Democratic party.[7][8] Critics point out that he has defended the Bush administration by arguing that Republicans did not exploit the issue of gay marriage in the presidential election of 2004.[citation needed] He also denounced Democrats in the House who voted against the Palm Sunday Compromise, which sought to reinstate Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, as "cold blooded,"[citation needed] and called environmentalism "a conspiracy 'to basically deconstruct capitalism.'"[1]

Caddell is a regular guest on the Fox News Channel, and he is listed as an official 'Fox News Contributor'. This has earned him the label of a "Fox News Democrat" by critics such as liberal opinion magazine Salon.com[1] He has also frequently appeared on the conservative website Ricochet.com discussing politics.[9][10][11]

According to Slate, Caddell was involved in identifying people willing to participate in the anti-Obama film The Hope and the Change, produced by Citizens United. Currently Caddell takes almost exclusively pro-Republican positions, so in many political circles, he is now considered a Republican.

It sickens me it has come to this. Is there any news outlet on tv or the internet that isn't ****ing biased? Right now I have AOL news to read in the morning and it's just horrid with the left leaning. Almost every article concerning Republicans has a negative word in the title of some sort, and almost every article bashes the right with curt remarks and presenting opinions as fact. It amazes me that the race is as close as it is as this seems to be a recurring theme in all the news outlets

We lived through a very strange and brief time, historically speaking, when journalism attempted to become neutral — or at least attempted to appear to be neutral. It was really only an informal experiment of sorts, and it's ended.

I don't understand all the handwringing. We're just returning to the normal state of journalism.

We lived through a very strange and brief time, historically speaking, when journalism attempted to become neutral — or at least attempted to appear to be neutral. It was really only an informal experiment of sorts, and it's ended.

I don't understand all the handwringing. We're just returning to the normal state of journalism.

Yep. I read somewhere that political parties used to own their own newspapers. Maybe in time, more conservatives will enter the journalism profession and bring some balance to the industry with competing publications (like Breitbart).

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"I'll see you guys in New York." ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to US military personnel upon his release from US custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq during Obama's first year in office.

lol you guys didn't know media is controlled by who? Oh yes, the big corporations. They show you what they want you to see, it's a brainwashing technique and it works. But of course, that's just crazy talk! Go 'Merica! USA USA USA

It sickens me it has come to this. Is there any news outlet on tv or the internet that isn't ****ing biased? Right now I have AOL news to read in the morning and it's just horrid with the left leaning. Almost every article concerning Republicans has a negative word in the title of some sort, and almost every article bashes the right with curt remarks and presenting opinions as fact. It amazes me that the race is as close as it is as this seems to be a recurring theme in all the news outlets

Complaining that media presenting negative or unflattering news about Rs = bias is like saying that the Kansas City Star is biased against the Chiefs.

Did you see the Star yesterday--all these negative articles about the Chiefs. They are so biased!

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Originally Posted by petegz28

Did planes hit the 2 WTC towers? Yes. Ah but were they the airliners we were told they were? Evidence and physics seems to say NO!

Yep. I read somewhere that political parties used to own their own newspapers. Maybe in time, more conservatives will enter the journalism profession and bring some balance to the industry with competing publications (like Breitbart).

News is predominantly web based anymore, and conservatives can hardly complain about lack of right-leaning news sources. Not to mention radio.

The hue and cry about media bias is a joke. Here in 2012 95% of Americans can get whatever media bias they want from whatever source they want anytime they want.

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